One described in Patent Document 1 is known as a door handle apparatus that performs foot lighting by fixing a lighting source (lighting device) to a door handle (operation handle) attached to a vehicle door.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional example, since the operation handle is used while being exposed to the outside, there is a disadvantage that an occurrence of a short circuit and the like owing to entrance of rainwater, wash water and the like cannot be prevented if such a lighting device as an LED is only attached onto the operation handle.
This problem is attempted to be solved by incorporating a sealed lighting device into the operation handle as in an invention described in Patent Document 2. However, this lighting device of the conventional example is formed by closing an opening of a switch case storing the LED therein by means of a diffusing member. Therefore, a joint portion between the case and the diffusing member that closes the opening of the case is provided, and accordingly, a structure of the lighting device is complicated. Moreover, two-color molding or a joining step of the diffusing member is required, and so on, and accordingly, a manufacturing process of the lighting device becomes complicated. Furthermore, a quantity of light irradiated toward the foot is decreased owing to a loss of a light quantity in the joint portion, and accordingly, there occurs a necessity to increase an output of the LED.